


everyone is king when there’s no one left to pawn

by mollivanders



Category: Psych
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-07
Updated: 2010-10-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:05:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the weeks after Mr. Yin kidnaps Gus, Shawn doesn’t say much (just shows up at Juliet’s door in the middle of the night, not quite smelling of liquor but unsteady on his feet all the same).</p>
            </blockquote>





	everyone is king when there’s no one left to pawn

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: everyone is king when there’s no one left to pawn**  
>  Rating: PG-13  
> Characters: Juliet/Shawn, past Juliet/Gus, background theme of Gus/Juliet/Shawn  
> Spoilers/Warnings: Speculation for S5  
> Summary: For girlsavesboyfic. Word Count - 2,245  
> Disclaimer: Psych belongs to _USA_ , I own nothing. Title from Beat the Devil's Tattoo.

In the weeks after Mr. Yin kidnaps Gus, Shawn doesn’t say much (just shows up at Juliet’s door in the middle of the night, not quite smelling of liquor but unsteady on his feet all the same).

She lets him in and doesn’t ask questions about what the hell he’s doing, why he hasn’t pulled himself together yet, just leads him to the bed, pulls his shoes and jacket off and lets him curl around her.

(They both feel safer this way.)

Juliet hasn’t given up looking for Gus; nobody has. He’s still the station’s number one priority but life has to go on – murders still happen in Santa Barbara, petty crooks and thievery. It’s just enough to keep her distracted from Gus’ case until Carlton suggests handing the investigation over to another detective.

She grabs the case file out of his hands and spends every night that week poring over the details, making late calls to people who might have seen something, heard something, noticed something in the bank statements or in video cameras across the street.

It turns out nothing is more frustrating than store owners who keep cameras just for show.

 

Shawn doesn’t jump on cases these days and Henry has to threaten to discharge him as a police consultant to get Shawn back to work. He takes the smaller crimes, not the murders, and Juliet wonders if he’s running his own investigation.

When she shows up at the old dry cleaners’ Shawn’s still living at, Juliet’s less surprised than she thought she would be.

“You’re not really psychic, are you?” she asks in an offhand way, sitting next to the mess of reports and files scattered on Shawn’s floor. He winces as she moves things around and Juliet stops, waiting for his reaction.

“The trail’s completely dry,” Shawn admits and sits next to her, rearranging the mess she made. “He just…went out for smoothies and never came out.”

The paper crumples in his hand as Shawn shuts his eyes tight, like he’s struggling for some piece of memory that’s not there. Hesitantly, Juliet covers his hand with hers.

She doesn’t protest when Shawn leans in to kiss her, forceful, and pulls him back with her, scattering the papers on the concrete as they tug each others’ clothes off, Shawn’s hands pressing firmly at her waist and his mouth hard against hers.

(The concrete’s freezing against Juliet’s back, Shawn’s breathing runs erratic in her ear and his skin slips under her hands; she grips him tighter and lets him hold her after. It’s not the last time.)

 

He still shows up at her apartment late at night, drunk but not wasted, and Juliet still leads him back to her bedroom (pulls his shoes and jacket off, lets him push her pajamas off to scrape at her skin, hold her close and never say a word until she’s curled up against him.)

“I miss him so much,” Shawn whispers one night, arms wrapped around her tenser than usual, head crooked at her neck, and Juliet can tell he’s trying not to cry. “He’s my best friend and he’s _out there_ somewhere. I have to find him.”

Juliet tries not to cry when Shawn’s barely holding it together, just twists around and wraps her hands behind his neck, presses soft kisses to his face and reassures him. “We’ll find him,” she promises, again and again, grateful for the darkness and the solid press of his body against hers.

It’s as much a promise to herself as it is to him (but even now, she never brings up the past).

 

Some nights he makes it to her door less than two drinks over his limit and he’ll sit with her on the bed going over her research, comparing it to his. Juliet’ll rattle off the details of her newest research while Shawn interjects with comments on his work, his exuberance limited to hand explosions and inside jokes meant for Gus.

(Now that she knows, he doesn’t bother with the show.)

They never go out and work together. Juliet runs tips Shawn finds through the system and Shawn pursues her leads on foot, but they never cross paths until he shows up at her door, always later than he should. At the station, Carlton doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t mock Shawn the way he used to and even offers his help when it’s a slow crime day.

Juliet wants to hug him. The cop in her knows, _knows_ , without a ransom note and with no word from Mr. Yin, the chances of finding Gus alive are almost nil. She clings to what Henry points out – they’re dealing with a crazy person (and if Gus was dead, Mr. Yin would want them to know it).

She wonders, rebelliously, if they should fight crazy with crazy. Juliet shares her idea with Shawn one night, over pineapple smoothies he bought on the way home. There’s not a trace of alcohol on his breath and she’s proud and nostalgic at the same time.

“What if we set a trap for Mr. Yin? Draw him out into the open?” she suggests and Shawn’s eyebrows go higher than usual.

“We’ll never find Gus if we don’t find Mr. Yin first,” Juliet argues and Shawn shakes his head, two steps ahead of her plan. 

“I’m not disagreeing,” he tells her. “Just… who are you saying we should use as bait?”

She should have realized Shawn agreed to use her in the trap far too easily.

 

Shawn places an ad in the _Santa Barbara Daily Sound_ proclaiming himself undefeated and daring the public to come out and challenge his supremacy. He submits the ad with a flicker of his old self and Juliet wonders if he’s recovering from the loss of Gus or just gone off the deep end, now that he has a plan of action.

Juliet told Carlton the plan was for Shawn to meet his challenger (whoever it was) at the Santa Barbara Lodge where they would engage in a series of challenges designed to outwit each other. Carlton said it sounded just as stupid as Spencer’s old tricks but agreed to stake out the perimeter.

The _plan_ was for Juliet to be the final challenge – to find her. The _plan_ was for Mr. Yin to take her, hopefully to the same place he was holding Gus and challenge Shawn to the same game from a year ago. The difference this year would be that Juliet would have a GPS tracker on her and it wouldn’t be a game at all.

 

Standing alone in a darkening forest was not Juliet’s idea of a good time, and by the sixth time she’d called Shawn with no answer about why he or Mr. Yin were so late to find her, she knew something was wrong.

One call to Carlton was all it took to realize Shawn had gone off book. Carlton drove around to where she was “hiding” and Juliet slid into the passenger seat with a glare, ignoring the clench in her stomach, visions of last year actually repeating crowding her head. She was _not_ going to lose them both.

“How did you let him get away?” she asked and Carlton threw his hands up in frustration.

“I don’t know! One minute he and the other guys were there, then they weren’t.”

Juliet scanned the tree line, full of places for someone to store a getaway car and disappear in the night. 

“Did you even get a look at the guy?” she asked, trying for patience, and Carlton shook his head.

“There were still three challengers by the last round,” he explained. “And even if Mr. Yin was there, he was probably disguised. Do you have a plan?”

Rummaging through her bag, Juliet dug out her own GPS tracker.

“I don’t think Shawn noticed me slip his tracker on,” she said and flipped the switch. “He better still be in range – how long have they been gone?”

“Forty minutes or so – I was waiting on your signal!” Carlton defended and Juliet sighed. “It’s not your fault. We can still find them.”

The signal was headed away from the lodge at a decent speed, so Juliet guessed Shawn and Mr. Yin were probably in some kind of car. Juliet gave directions while Lassiter raced down the streets back into town, sans police sirens to avoid tipping off Mr. Yin.

They drove all the way through town and started curling against the Pacific coastline, Juliet gripping the side of the door, tense from the dangerous drive and the distance still between them and the green dot representing Shawn’s location, still on the move.

She was going to _kill_ him for not calling her. Or for setting this up in the first place. Or for letting Mr. Yin get the advantage and force him into a car.

Unless it got them Gus back. Then she might forgive him.

“It’s slowing down,” she told Carlton tightly, flicking her eyes back to the road. “They’re probably pulling off the road. See if you recognize one of the cars from the lodge.”

By the time they caught up with the blinking dot, it’s stopped in a parking lot for an old warehouse and the adrenaline’s built up in Juliet’s body, searching for an outlet. While Carlton calls for backup with the address, Juliet slinks up to the building and eyes the sliding cargo door, slightly ajar and begging her to cross past it.

She waits until Carlton’s snuck up to the other side of the door and nods his readiness before she sneaks inside.

The man holding Shawn at gunpoint looked familiar, though Juliet couldn’t place from where. They both had their backs to her and Shawn was being herded towards one of two chairs, the only objects in the otherwise empty warehouse.

Juliet and Lassiter advanced quietly, staying out of the gunman’s narrow field of vision. 

Crossing past the shadows from the dimly lit building, Juliet froze. Gus was in the other chair.

“Hands up!” she yelled across the warehouse and the gunman swiveled in shock, leveling his gun at her and firing off a shot before Juliet ducked and rolled to the floor, Lassiter covering her approach as Shawn swung into action, racing over to Gus and working to untie him.

Back on her feet, Juliet ran at the gunman and impulsively took a swing at him, knocking him back to where Shawn was helping Gus hobble away. As the attacker fired off another shot toward Shawn and Gus, Juliet took the moment and shot the man in his leg, rushing forward as he fell.

“His face!” Gus called out hoarsely, dropping from Shawn’s grip to the ground next to her. “He’s not who you think!” Grabbing at the man’s skin, Gus gave a harsh yank and let the man’s head knock back to the concrete floor.

Beneath the mask, Mr. Yin was only Woody, the coroner, having barely missed his own slab.

(Juliet kicks him in his shin for good measure; leans over and whispers a threat in his ear. Never come looking for them; never again or find the score’s far from unsettled.)

 

He’s real and warm and in her arms, slumped against her and pinning her to the chain-link fence outside the warehouse. She doesn’t care (grips him tighter) and shuts her eyes, repeating her instructions in his ear.

“Next time you change your mind, decide to run off with a serial killer, you call me. You text me. You lead him to me. Until you find me, Shawn,” Juliet repeats, tries not to come off commanding and failing.

He doesn’t protest, doesn’t point out he’s a grown man and doesn’t need to obey her, just grips her tighter, meshing them as close as he can, and nods, assenting.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her between her instructions. “I’m sorry, Jules. I couldn’t risk it.”

Behind them, Gus is finally rolled out in a wheelchair and Juliet grabs Shawn’s hand, pulls him with her as they rush to meet Gus to see if he’s still awake.

He is, just barely, drugs pumping through his system to keep him stable (Juliet lists the symptoms – dehydration, hypothermia, malnutrition – and is grateful there’s no more).

“Shawn?” Gus asks and Shawn smiles for the first time in months, grips his friend’s hand as tightly as he can and nods. “Yeah, buddy, it’s me. Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking everywhere.”

They walk like that, Shawn gripping each of their hands until the medics hoist Gus into the ambulance and Shawn jumps in after him, helps Juliet up. They sit with Gus on the way over to the hospital, not really talking but keeping him awake. They sit with Gus in the Santa Barbara Hospital and avoid the press conference outside – miraculous discovery, Mr. Yin caught at last, his last victim saved.

“Thank you,” Shawn manages once Gus has fallen asleep, his vitals steady. Doesn’t elaborate (doesn’t have to).

Juliet squeezes his hand, presses a kiss to his cheek. “It’s what I do, Shawn.” Watching Gus and Shawn, she ignores the twist in her stomach, uncertainty for what’s to come now that life’s back to normal. 

From the bed, weakly Gus lifts his head. “Thank you, Juliet.”  
Meeting both their eyes in succession, Juliet leans back in her chair only to smile at them.

“It’s what I do, guys.”

Normal it is.

_Finis_


End file.
